Official; Robyn is a smarty pants.

Robyn took her driving test today!

And as you can see - she passed first time with flying colours.

It's been a fraught summer. I've been in a lot of pain and we haven't done anything. Robyn was taking lessons and occasionally driving with me, which hurt a lot.

I knew she could pass but I was really worried that she wouldn't make it. She's never driven a manual gearbox before and British roads are small and congested in comparison with American roads. They don't have roundabouts and our test is much harder than theirs is.

But the real problem was that while her instructor has a brand new car you hardly need to drive, my poor old car is old and crotchety. Just like me. The gear box is crunchy and eccentric, the gear ratios are different and the engine is about half as powerful.

Added to that the signal stalk is on the opposite side of the steering wheel, so often we'd be turning and suddenly the windshield wipers would come on and Robyn would be swearing again. Her instructor banned her from driving my car for a week before the test.

We'd go out, Robyn would be driving fine and then she'd get frustrated with my car and start getting angry with me because of it. I had a vision of her losing her temper with the examiner.

But everything went really well - Robyn was a Kool Kat.

She resisted the temptation to slam her foot down on the accelerator and just walked through the test.

I'm very proud of her - it's been a tough year and she needs to take over the driving as my mobility fails.

So then I rang the insurance company to tell them the good news and, of course, they increased the premium and charged me £25 administration charge on top of that.

Grrrrrrh!

Neil Harris
(a don't stop till you drop production)
Home: helpmesortoutstpeters.blogspot.com
Contact me: neilwithpromisestokeep@gmail.com